


I Think I Can Meet Her... There

by littleisis13



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, F/M, What Have I Done, Yuri, also clerith tho, favorite rareship, i'm trash, whispers of other ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24079651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleisis13/pseuds/littleisis13
Summary: Aerith falls from the lifestream and onto a flower bed, meeting a woman who mirrors her beloved in a strange twist of fate. Canon divergence from FF XIII-2. Minor spoilers for FF7 remake.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough/Lighting Farron
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. I'm searching for you...

The ruins of Oerba weren’t the same as when Lightning and her party had visited as L’Cie. She could still remember Fang’s stricken face when they arrived at the desolate landscape. _Around the Fal’Cie it was flowers as far as you could see, eh?_ She’d said before she laid eyes on her old home.  
Back then all there’d been was ruins—nothing green. But now, a year after Oerba’s former inhabitants trapped themselves in Cacoon’s crystal pillar, there were hints of vegetation. Lightning didn’t come here often, but when she did, she liked to check on an abandoned home with a massive hole in its roof. It allowed the sunlight to stream onto the floor, where the bottom structure had rotted away into moist earth and bloomed into a patch of wildflowers in every color—purple, yellow, blue, orange, and a deep pink the same color as the lining of Serah’s bow sword.  
There was no harm in seeing it before Lightning continued her search for the C’eith stone she’d been sent off to find and mark. She hadn’t told a soul about it—not even Serah. She could imagine Sazh’s remarks already. _SOLDIER Girl slackin’ off to sit and stare at some flowers?_  
Anyway, she couldn’t explain why she liked them. She wasn’t much of a nature lover. Mostly, she wished Vanille and Fang were with her when she sat with them. Today, she had brought lunch with her, which gave her an excuse to camp out there. She set her pack aside and pulled out the sandwich Serah had made her, keeping blazefire saber nearby. Always prepared.  
She sat next to the flower patch, absently chewing her food when it happened. Rotting wood from the edges of the hole in the roof kicked up dust as they flew off from the force of what—or who— was falling through. Lightning tossed her sandwich aside and leapt to her feet, grabbing her gun sword and whipping out the blade. Flower petals danced around her and suspended themselves in midair before slowly falling away, revealing the woman that had fallen through the roof.  
Lightning slowly sheathed her sword and stepped closer to peer at her. She appeared to be unconscious, wearing a pink sundress and red bomber jacket. Impossibly long auburn hair was twisted into a braid and secured with a pink ribbon. She looked to be around Lightning’s age, with long dark lashes resting against delicate cheekbones. Pretty—not kittenish like Vanille or wildly beautiful like Fang—but pretty. Unassumingly so.  
Her skin was translucently pale, but color was starting to return to her face. Lightning had no idea how far she’d fallen. She didn’t look dangerous. “Hey,” Lightning said awkwardly. She hadn’t used her voice in hours and the sound of it in her secret, quiet place sounded strange. “You all right?”  
The woman stirred but didn’t move. Lightning sighed and reached out to shake the woman’s shoulders. “Hey, wake up.” She knew her bedside manner probably needed some work. That was more Serah’s wheelhouse.  
The woman’s eyes opened. They were green, but not golden-green like Fang’s had been. They were so bright that such a shade of green couldn’t possibly exist elsewhere, except perhaps on a field of dewy grass on a warm spring day. It hurt to look at them.  
Lightning cleared her throat and averted her eyes. “You hurt?” She asked gruffly.  
“Cloud?” The woman asked breathlessly.  
Lightning looked down at the woman, who was now gazing at her intensely. Strange. It wasn’t a terribly overcast day and she wasn’t looking at the sky. “Huh?”  
The woman frowned slightly. “You aren’t Cloud, are you?”  
It suddenly occurred to her that Cloud must be the name of a person. “Lightning,” she said curtly.  
“Hmmm? I don’t see any lightning,” the woman said, her voice soft. She looked through the hole in the roof. “It doesn’t look like its storming.”  
Lightning might have laughed if she had a better sense of humor. “No, I mean I’m Lightning. Lightning Farron.”  
“Oh,” the woman smiled and Lightning felt her insides soften in a way that wasn’t quite like the way Serah could make her melt. Here was someone who was clearly good with people, unlike her. “That’s a nice name. I’m Aerith Gainsborough. Would you happen to know how I got here?”  
Lightning pointed at the ceiling. “You fell from the sky. I guess the flowers broke your fall.”  
“Hmmm,” the woman looked down and closed her eyes, her smile growing faint and contemplative. “I guess so. I wonder if this is the Promised Land?”  
Lightning scoffed. “This is Gran Pulse.” There was something strange about the woman, who kept staring at her in wonderment, as though she was the most fascinating thing she’d ever encountered. Her clothes were strange too. “Hardly the Promised Land.”  
Aerith’s face fell, but immediately brightened again after a few seconds. She got to her feet and busied herself with dusting off her dress. Lightning took the time to look up at the hole in the roof and noticed a greenish glow, barely distinguishable as high up in the sky as it was.  
“A paradox,” she mused out loud. “Doesn’t look like the others though.” They’d been appearing sporadically throughout Pulse and it was worrisome. Perhaps Aerith’s appearance had something to do with this one.  
“A paradox?” Aerith inquired.  
Lightning nodded, more to herself than her new companion. Aerith followed her gaze. “Ah, I see. It must have been in the lifestream. But is there any way to get up there?”  
“Lifestream?” Lightning asked.  
Aerith nodded. “Oh yes, its where I was before. Since I’m actually dead.”  
Lightning arched an eyebrow at her. “You don’t look dead to me.”  
Aerith giggled. “Well, I am. At least, I was. Maybe this is the Promised Land after all. But its nothing you should worry about, Lightning. All you need to know is that I’m not from this planet.”  
“Clearly,” Lightning said dryly. Aerith was probably unhinged, but she couldn’t help but like how she said her name. “But what can I say? I’m not from here either.”  
“No?” Aerith inquired stepping closer to her and leaning forward, her face growing closer to Lightning’s. It surprised her and she found herself taking a step back. Aerith giggled again, which caused warmth to flood to Lightning’s cheeks. It was embarrassing enough to lose her footing, but she wasn’t one to blush either.  
Lightning had to take greater pains than usual to school her faced into its standard neutral scowl and folded her arms. “Never mind. Look, I’m here to get a job done. You can tag along as long as you don’t slow me down. After I’m done I can take you to New Bodhum and we can decide what to do there. I came here without an Airbike, so I can’t take you back up to the paradox, and I don’t want to go near it just yet anyway.”  
“I won’t slow you down,” Aerith replied. “I can handle myself.”  
“You can’t be that tough if you’re dead,” Lightning replied.  
Aerith laughed. It was a genuine laugh, which wasn’t something people did often in Lightning’s presence. “Maybe you can be my bodyguard, then.” At that, the look on her face changed briefly to a sad one, which unnerved Lightning even more.  
“All right. I’ll be your bodyguard.” Lightning found herself saying, though she couldn’t remember deciding to say it.  
Aerith brightened again. “Really? Just like that?”  
“Yeah, fine. Let’s just go.”  
“Lead the way!” Aerith said enthusiastically. 

It was painful, to be near someone who reminded her so much of Cloud. She was clearly terrible at moving on in the best of circumstances, but this was nothing like how Cloud had initially reminded her of Zack. Cloud’s similarities to him had been relatively minor, though noticeable enough to give her Déjà vu—the way he moved, his facial expressions. But even with his mind and memories fractured, Cloud was visible. Searching for him, pulling out pieces of him and seeing them had made her happier than anything else in her life prior.  
When she’d woken up in a flower bed in a strange twist of fate, she’d looked into a face that looked just like his. Cerulean blue eyes devoid of the glow of mako, set in a delicate and scowling face. She’d spent the first few moments in this strange world wondering if she was with him again—because Lightning seemed to immediately share his core characteristics from the moment they interacted.  
But of course, there were differences. Lightning was a woman. Aerith was already finding that some of the lines Zack had used on her, and she in turn used on the few boyfriends and girlfriends she’d had since, all the way up to Cloud, didn’t work as well on Lightning. She tried not to stare at her as she followed close behind her in the strange, abandoned ruins of some town—Oerba, Lightning called it. On the horizon, she could see a strange, massive crystal structure help up by what looked to be a contorted pillar. It was beautiful, even if it was eerie.  
Lightning was about as talkative as Cloud was, so she struck up a conversation. “Is that where you’re from?” She pointed in the direction of the suspended crystal world.  
Lightning followed her gaze. “Yes,” she replied. “That’s Cocoon.”  
“It’s beautiful,” Aerith remarked. “How does the crystal hold it up?”  
Lightning’s scowl darkened. “My friends are in it.”  
Aerith blinked.  
“It’s a long story,” Lightning grunted in her deep, husky voice. Even her short, curt remarks caused Aerith to get a pleasant shiver.  
“You must miss them,” Aerith said quietly. She understood. Lightning turned slightly to look at her with blue eyes. Aerith wondered if Cloud’s eyes would have looked like hers if they’d never been drenched with mako.  
“Yes, I miss them,” she said stiffly. Well, that was one way she wasn’t like Cloud. Cloud never would have admitted to missing anyone, even under duress.  
“Can you hear them?” Aerith asked. Lightning paused ever so slightly, not to react to Aerith’s question, but to observe her surroundings. Blue eyes darted around warily, but it still somehow managed to seem seamless and natural.  
“Only when it first happened,” the pink-haired woman replied.  
They rounded a corner and came face to face with a monster. It looked like a behemoth, though more sophisticated than the ones Aerith was familiar with. She heard Lightning curse in annoyance before striding forward and drawing her weapon, which Aerith saw for the first time. “Stay back there and don’t get in my way, got it?” Lightning called behind her shoulder.  
“That’s an awfully big behemoth, are you sure you don’t need help?” Aerith called back. She admired the other’s woman’s sword, which started as a gun and extended into a wicked-looking blade.  
“Just stay there,” Lightning ordered. She leapt into the air and gracefully dodged the Behemoth’s weapon, landing a blow on the creature’s forehead. Aerith watched her in fascination as she fought. She was incredible, her reflexes sharp—muscles flexing in smooth, sinewy arms as she deftly dodged, parried, and landed slices on the monster. _Just like Cloud._  
Her heart ached with regret. His pain, which she could hear in the lifestream, had cut into her deeper than masumane ever could. It howled like a desolate wasteland—more so than the beast Lightning fought. The behemoth swiped at Lightning and this time it hit its mark. The young woman went flying as the blow connected and landed heavily on the ground several feet from Aerith.  
“Lightning!” Aerith shouted. The woman groaned and started to get to her feet, but Aerith was already drawing her stave, which materialized. Her Materia was gone—that was no surprise—but she could still muster a powerful spell, which she directed at the Behemoth. Already on its last leg from the beating it had taken from Lightning, it shuddered and fell to the ground, finished at last.  
Lightning briefly looked impressed before scowling at her, holding up one of her arms, which appeared to be broken. She didn’t seem to notice the painful injury, instead blowing a strand of rose hair out of her face. “I told you I had it taken care of.”  
“Maybe I should be your bodyguard,” Aerith beamed. She started to move towards Lightning, wanting to heal her arm, but the other woman cast what looked to be a cure spell and stretched out her fully healed arm a moment later.  
Lightning cracked her knuckles. “I’m fine.”  
“My bodyguard services aren’t cheap, though. It’ll cost you. A lot.”  
Lightning’s pretty pale cheeks darkened just slightly, which pleased Aerith immensely. “How does a damsel in distress get a sword that dangerous, anyway?”  
“This is Blazefire Sabre,” Lightning replied. She retracted the blade into the gun and returned it to its sheath. “It was a special issue from when I was in SOLDIER.”  
Aerith’s stomach somersaulted. “It seems like I have a type,” she remarked.  
Lightning returned to her stoic frown and folded arm combo. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I know when people are flirting with me.”  
“Of course you do,” Aerith replied warmly. Lightning looked like such a darling standing there, pretending to be unimpressed with everything. “What normally happens to people who flirt with you?”  
“I have a job to do, Aerith. I need to find that C’eith stone.”  
Perhaps this was her Promised Land after all. “Lead the way,” she gestured again cheerfully.


	2. I want to meet you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yeeeesssss. Indulge in my rareship with me! Mwahahahaha! Reviews and kudos are so deeply appreciated. I didn't think I'd get any. I can't believe its been six years since I wrote fanfiction!

Aerith continued to chatter as they traversed Oerba, asking Lightning questions and remarking on various things, mostly the best places to grow flowers or asking Lightning if she knew what type of plant was what. Lightning’s knowledge of Gran Pulse’s ecosystem was limited—Fang would have known but, Lightning thought with a pang, she wasn’t around.  
Aerith eventually got back to the subject of the crystal pillar when she wasn’t distracted by ferns or the odd mound of moisture-rich soil. “What were their names?”  
“Fang and Vanille,” Lightning kept her answers short in the best of circumstances, but talking about those two still caused her difficulty. There was a brief pause as Aerith seemed to sense her reluctance—Lightning wondered if she had some kind of sixth sense about people. She seemed to be the type.  
“What were they like?” Aerith asked finally.  
“Vanille was a real airhead, but smart. Good at defensive spells. And Fang was… strong. A good fighter. Protective of people she liked.” Lightning replied after a pause. She wasn’t normally one to open up to strangers, but something about Aerith’s eyes made her chest feel lighter when she turned to look at her.  
Aerith smiled in a private way—more to herself than her new companion, as though recalling a fond memory. “I had a friend who was a sort of airhead. Her name was Yuffie. She was always stealing our stuff and getting into trouble, but deep down she was a good kid.”  
“Do your friends know you’re dead?” Lightning asked.  
“Yes,” Aerith said, her smile changing to a sad one as her eyes grew melancholy—like a gust of wind had blown through the field of grass. “I died in front of them.”  
Lightning wished she hadn’t asked. She remembered trying awkwardly to console Hope as he coped with the loss of his mother. The poor kid had almost ended up killing Snow. She slowed her steps and did her best to maintain eye contact with the other woman. “That’s… sorry.”  
To her shock, that seemed to do the trick. Aerith’s smile looked placid again. “I know they’re all right. That’s what my heart tells me. I think about my memories of them, the moments we shared, and it makes me happy.”  
Lightning’s own memories came back to her. Fang’s mischievous grin as she unzipped the front of Lightning’s sweater to check her brand. _Let's have a look, don’t be shy._  
Vanille followed, trotting across the landscape of her mind, humming one of her inane melodies.  
“I’ll have to remember that,” Lightning replied.  
Before they could share anything else with one another, she spotted the Cie’th stone out of the corner of her eye. She gestured for Aerith to follow her and made her way towards the stone, sighing inwardly as she wondered how bothersome the mark was going to be.  
Aerith’s eyes widened when she laid eyes on it, and froze.  
“What is it?” Lightning asked, turning to look at her again.  
“Someone’s soul is trapped in there. They were never able to return to the planet.” She went from looking troubled to being contemplative.  
“Not sure what you mean by returning to the planet, but their soul is trapped in there because they never completed their focus,” Lightning offered by way of explanation. “I have to do it for them, so they can be at peace.”  
“Hmmmm,” Aerith mused. She strode forward and knelt next to the C’eith stone, bowing her head.  
“Aerith wait, what are you doing?” Lightning asked. The long-haired woman brought her hands to her face as though praying and went still, closing her eyes.  
“Aerith?” Lightning asked again.  
“Shhhhh, almost done,” Aerith whispered.  
A few moments later, to Lightning’s shock, the C’eith stone dissolved into tendrils of glowing green mist—the same color as the paradox Aerith had fallen from. It surrounded her briefly before it seemed to blow away in the wind.  
“What did you do?” Lightning asked, bewildered.  
“I sent them to the lifestream, where they can rest. No need to complete their focus.”  
Lightning stood dumbstruck. That was it? Who was this woman? It had taken Lightning and her friends defying fate, Fang and Vanille trapping themselves in crystal—to be free of their focus. Aerith had said a simple prayer and made a focus blow away in the wind. She got to her feet and dusted off her dress, as though she’s done something as simple as cleaning her breakfast dishes.  
“We...we still have to find the mark,” Lightning said at last, still not entirely sure of what to make of what had just happened.  
Aerith turned to look at her. “Why?”  
Why indeed. Lightning could hear her unspoken words. It wasn’t as though people came out to this area—aside from her. Even if the mark was still there, what was the point in slaying it? Live and let live, Aerith seemed to say.  
At last, Lightning shrugged. “Target’s a target.”  
Aerith laughed again. It was strange to be around someone who seemed to find her so amusing. Most people were afraid of Lightning. To answer Aerith’s previous question, people who flirted with her usually ended up slinking away in intimidation before long.  
But Aerith behaved as though Lightning simply tickled her.  
“Do you think you could do that again?” Lightning asked her.  
“I suppose I could,” Aerith replied. “I can probably only do it because the paradox connects your world to mine through the lifestream. Are there a lot of these stones?”  
“Well, yes,” Lightning replied. “It’s going to take a while to find them all.”  
Aerith gazed at her. “And you have to keep finding them and fighting marks to set them free?”  
Lightning nodded.  
“That sounds like a lot of work,” Aerith said thoughtfully. A moment later, she clapped her hands. “Then that settles it, I’ll have to stick around and help you find them all so we can release them.”  
“You’d do that?” Lightning asked, bemused.  
“Yep,” Aerith nodded.  
“But why? We just met.”  
Aerith leaned forward again, her face getting closer to Lightning’s. This time, the stoic pink-haired woman stood her ground. She could see her own face reflected in Aerith’s luminescent green eyes. In spite of herself, her heart skipped a beat.  
“Maybe I’m not sick of you yet,” Aerith purred. 

Aerith found New Bodhum to be a pleasant enough place. Lightning insisted she stay in the house she lived in with her younger sister Serah—who was clearly the focal point of her universe and the pink-haired woman’s North Star. When Aerith asked why she would do something so kind, Lightning had shrugged “Might as well. You’re helping me out.”  
She would look cool and nonchalant while she said these things. Like Cloud did while telling everyone he wasn’t interested. Her new pink-haired hero gruffly introduced Aerith to the residents of New Bodhum, and when she wasn’t traveling to release C’ieth stones with her, she busied herself with Serah’s students, helping them grow flower and vegetable gardens at the school and in other suitable places.  
It was nice, but she couldn’t help but still miss the steel sky. She would wake up in the night, feeling Cloud’s howling wasteland of sorrow in her heart. Tonight was one such night, but there was something else keeping her awake.  
She slept in a spare room by herself near the main entryway, and could hear the sound of a lumbering figure trying to make its way in or out of the house. Still troubled by her dreams, she picked up her stave and went to see what the commotion was.  
She came face to face with Snow Villiers, trying to sneak his way to the front door, albeit unsuccessfully. He was a massive, muscled man. Aerith liked him well enough. He reminded her of Barret in some ways, if Barret had been more of a dope.  
It was no surprise to her that he was there for a rendezvous and trying to sneak away. He was engaged to be married to Serah and the wedding was set to occur in a few months’ time. She half hoped she would still be around to see it, mostly because she wanted to see how cute Lightning would look while she walked her younger sister down the aisle.  
Snow spotted her and his face paled. Aerith took pity on him and put her finger to her lips before pointing to the door. He still had a chance to live if he managed to make it out without rousing Lightning.  
Snow looked relieved and nodded to her silently in thanks before inching towards the door again. His relief was, unfortunately, short-lived. It was impossible to hope that Lightning’s keen ears wouldn’t spot an intruder in her house, even if she was fast asleep. The pink-haired warrior appeared at the top of the stairs in her pajamas, blazefire sabre in hand.  
For a terrible moment, as Aerith saw the look on Lightning’s face, she thought she might actually shoot Snow. Instead, she dropped her weapon and reached her soon to be brother-in-law in seconds.  
“Light, hey!” Snow said, eyes widening in terror as he tried to sound cheerful. “I was just stopping by to—  
Lightning drew her arm back and punched Snow heavily in the face. The force of the blow sent him sprawling to the ground.  
“You were just leaving,” she said curtly.  
Snow stupidly tried to get to his feet and Lightning decked him a second time. He fell heavily to the ground again.  
“Claire!” Serah shrieked as she flew from her room in nothing but a bathrobe. Aerith would have laughed. The entire scene was almost comical, after all. But she was still worried that Lightning might actually murder her younger sister’s fiancé.  
Serah raced to Snow’s side, who groaned as he put his hand to his bloody nose, and put herself between him and Lightning. “Stop! Will you just grow up already? We’re going to be married in two months! I’m an adult!”  
Lightning hadn’t looked Aerith’s way, but she could tell that the other woman knew she was watching. The hint of color was appearing on her cheeks and she almost looked chagrined through her scowl. “What did you expect, Serah?” she asked, folding her arms and pretending to be unfazed.  
Serah pointed her finger in her older sister’s face—a move that Aerith knew only she could get away with. Anyone else who did that would probably lose the finger. “Just because some of us have love lives doesn’t mean you get to go around ruining them! You might have a love life too if you didn’t act so obtuse. Just go ogle Aerith some more and leave me in peace!”  
Serah took one last look at Snow, who nodded at her, confirming that he was fine. Serah huffed and stormed back up the stairs. After her door slammed, Snow warily got to his feet, inching away from Lightning discreetly. “Sorry, Sis. Get some sleep.” He grinned at her with bloody teeth before fleeing through the front door.  
“I’m not your god-damned sister,” Lightning called after him.  
Her glower was legendary, even for her. Aerith caught her eye and she turned away, giving the Ancient a full view of her impressive, well-muscled backside. She certainly enjoyed how well-formed Lightning was, her bare legs showing no matter what the weather in her standard attire. She wasn’t quite as full-figured as Tifa, but that was a near-impossible feat. And anyway, she quite liked how Lightning looked.  
“This would be a good time for us to go back to bed and pretend this never happened,” Lightning told her over her shoulder.  
“For what its worth, I like how obtuse you are,” Aerith told her back.  
“Yeah, right. We have to leave early tomorrow to find that C’eith stone, so you should rest.” Lightning started to shuffle back upstairs to her room, but Aerith called out to her one last time. After everything that had happened, she couldn’t let things go unsaid. Traveling around Gran Pulse with Lightning made her too happy, even though she knew it would have to come to an end soon.  
“Lightning,” she said.  
The other woman picked her beloved gun sword up from the floor before turning to look down at her from the staircase. “Mmmm?”  
“We need to make the most of the time we have,” Aerith told her, gazing up at her and wanting her to hear every word. “To live our lives the way we want to live. Every minute, every moment, matters.”  
“Uh huh,” Lightning replied. The corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. The same way Cloud’s would when he was trying not to smile around her but couldn’t help himself. She’d lived for the curves at the corners of his mouth, and now was no different. Lightning leaned slightly to the side and put her hand on her hip, a cocky move she made when she needed to feel confident. “You’re weird. You know that, right?”  
“What I mean is,” Aerith continued, refusing to look away. “No matter what happens… you can fall in love with me, if you want to. Even if you think you haven’t, it's real.”  
Lightning’s gentle exclamation before turning her head to the side made Aerith’s heart pound against her chest. She wished she could reach her from where she was standing.  
“I don’t get a say in this, do I?” Lightning muttered.  
“It’s almost morning,” Aerith replied quietly. “Time to sleep before we have to go.”  
Lightning nodded. “I’ll come for you when its time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, you know how girls are with each other. We move fast. *shrug* Call for the u-haul.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun imagining a meet-cute between these two.


End file.
